9 entries categorized "DNC"

August 29, 2008

It took no time for things to change back home in the Windy City after Barack Obamawas nominated in the Mile High City Thursday night by the Democratic party to be its candidate for president.

I got an email from my friend, Sergio Mims, who lives in the same Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago as Obama. Here's what he had to report:

Just
yesterday I walked by Obama's house on 51st and Greenwood two blocks
from me and there wasn't much going on expect for the usual black Secret Service mini-van parked outside.

I passed by it today just 20 minutes
ago and the street is now blocked off with those big concrete barriers
to prevent cars from driving by, fences and signs warning Don't Enter.
Now the only people allowed through now are people who live on the
block.

Things change in a hurry but at least I live on the safest neighborhood in the city now.

August 28, 2008

On the 53rd anniversary of the murder of Emmitt Till, the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech at the Washington Mall and 72 years after the first African Americans attended a Democratic national convention, history happened. Barack Obama became the first African American to accept the Democratic Party nomination for the president of the United States. His acceptance came before 84
,000 faithful in a stadium where a contact sport stirs men's blood year in and year out. His acceptance speech was inspirational and spirited. Republicans John McCain and George W. Bush were taken to task for failures too many to list, but many were ticked off, and too painful to ignore. His acceptance speech offered hope framed by real solutions to real problems. His acceptance speech was a rapid round of fire power in the escalating battle for the White House. November 5, 2008 may be the time the forces for good won. It would be a great change and a greater leap forward for America.

The view from the sports press box at Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos, is close to panoramic. Thirty-one other bloggers are perched up here with me, and like me, waiting for nightfall and the dawn of Barack Obama’s historic face-off with John McCain. In less than 90 minutes, the acceptance speech begins. Obama’s got some big shoes to fill: His own. High expectations in the Mile High City and beyond, from sea to shining sea and around the planet people are awaiting a spellbinder. He’s got to equal or surpass his Philadelphia speech on race last March. He’s got to match or outdo his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. It doesn’t stop there. Obama’s speech is exactly 45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”--aka "the Broken Promise" speech on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Anything less in substance and style than these three monumental speeches could easily be labeled as a dud by the MSM and his Republican detractors. Stay tuned, we’ll hear soon. In the meantime, here’s Dr. King’s classic.

August 27, 2008

At least one of Chris Matthew's often repeated political quipsis going to have to be changed. It goes like this: Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.

Well, during the first three days of this four-day convention here, in Denver, I’ve watched Democrats in love, fall in line. It was some sight to behold. Michelle Obama was stunning in appearance and speech on Monday. The next night, Hillary Clinton strongly endorsed Obama and chiefly commanded her troops to not be the enemy within and prepare for the battle begun.
Tonight Bill Clinton seconded that emotion.
And, just like that, all those worries about a floor fight or a brokered convention vanished. It was all verbal hugs and kisses. Goo-goo ayes and acclamations. Obama and Biden are a team and the Clintons have given their blessings.
It looks like bad news for the Republicans. For the past week or so they’ve been courting Hillary’ disenchanted and disillusioned followers, hoping to woo them into a temporary political tryst. Republican operatives played on the tensions between the Obama and Clinton camps. They clucked about possible swipes Hillary had made and help spread rumors that Bill would be a party unfaithful.
No such luck and the GOP’s sweet nothings, for the most part, seem to be falling on deaf ears. And while there are still are a small percentage of Hillites ready for the taking, I don’t think there’s enough to spoil the Democrat’s new union. We'll see. But no doubt about it, this has been Obama’s night. Tomorrow will be his day. Ain’t love Grand, Old Party?

August 26, 2008

I wasn’t going to talk to the two young cops hanging out in front of Denver’s Convention Center, just waiting for trouble to break out. But Tracey Barnett wanted to pop off a few shots of them all dressed up in their police paraphernalia. Tracey is a freelance journalist from New Zealand. We just met an hour before in the Specialty Media Lounge where we talked about her website, my blog, our spouses, our children and, of course, Barack Obama and politics. We were on our way to catch the shuttle to Pepsi Center when the Denver cops caught her eye. After Tracey finished clicking, I couldn’t help but start shooting off a few questions. I wanted to know if they knew how many and who the protesters were. Since I was hanging out in the convention center and in the Pepsi Center with the delegates, I had no idea what was happening on the streets. He rattled off a few of the groups, Recreate 68, Code Pink and the anarchists. Not a word about the right-to-lifers. I thought they’d at least get honorable mention. Yesterday morning I’d attended the African American Caucus where a young white man disrupted the meeting by yelling out that Barack Obama equaled genocide. Before he could finish spewing out his rehearsed lines, he was being whisked away by a couple of law officers. "Obama" had already drowned his words out "Obama! Obama! Obama!" chants from the thousand or so DNC delegates seated in the auditorium. About 10 minutes later, another young white man in a different part of the crowd jumped up, attempting to repeat the same performance. He got the same treatment. So, I thought, the anti-choice crowd was not making its mark. “It’s the anarchists,” one of the two young officers said, casually charging that they had been throwing plastic bags filled with excrement at him and others among Denver’s finest.

“Anarchists? I thought they had played out long ago,” I said. “They’re trying to make a comeback. They say they want anarchy but they’re trying to organize others. That makes no sense to me.” I had to nod in agreement. “How many were there?” “Maybe 500 or 600.” Tracey had stopped her picture taking and was now in a questioning mode. She had them showing off their new tech weapons. One cop had a grenade launcher. He showed us the tear-gass filled plastic bombs it shot off. The other had an orange-handled rifle that shot rubber bullets. Up close, they both almost looked like toys. Both types of weapons had been put to use just about the time Michelle Obama was speaking to the nation. That’s when the anarchists and the Denver police were battling downtown while virtually all of the 15,000 journalists here to cover the convention were inside the Pepsi Center listening to Michelle’s heart-felt, heart-warming speech about an American family, its past and the nation’s future. Outside, the anarchists didn’t fare as well. If they had planned their protest better, they would have come with better police protection and would have picked a better time to call for no law and disorder.

(Top photo is one of the pictures Tracey Barnett shot. Special thanks to Rhonda Matthews for the photo of the group of Denver police)

August 25, 2008

I have the dubious distinctionof being one of the first journalists to be beaten by the Chicago police in 1968. My own personal cop clubbing came in a different era in a different city at a different Democratic National Convention. It was exactly 40 years ago Sunday night in the initial stage of what would later be described as a “police riot.” The whole world was watching. Richard J. Daley, Chicago’s first mayor-for-life and father to the second one, was hell-bent on making sure that his city was show-cased as the world class city he knew it to be. No unwashed, longhaired, commie sympathizing hippies were going to disrupt his party’s party in his city. No how. No way. So when 11 p.m. rolled around, on August 25, 1968, more than 6,000 riot-gear laden cops marched into Chicago’s Lincoln Park to make sure that the less than 5,000 protesters gathered there understood that the welcome mat was about to be rolled up and carted away. “The park closes at 11 p.m.,” an authoritative voice announced through a bullhorn. The anti-war demonstrators were ordered to clear out. No sooner than the announcement was made, I saw in the distance an unidentified sailing object, highlighted by the lights from the TV cameras, launched from within the ranks, over the demonstrators into the ranks of the Chicago police. It would be months later before we’d learn that the bottle had been thrown by an undercover cop acting as an agent provocateur. But right then, right there, all we knew was that all hell was breaking loose. The riot-helmeted blue mass moved toward the long-haired mass. Soon I saw one person after the next staggering south on Clark Street, with blood and tear-stained faces. For me, an Indiana University college student who was interning in Newsweek's Chicago bureau, this was TV drama in the flesh. John Culhane, the Newsweek correspondent who was showing me the ropes, and I ran against the crowd to get a first-hand look at the action. We didn’t get far.

"The police had formed a club-swinging gauntlet along the curb. Every
four or five feet there was a billy club wielding cop wailing away. We
were beaten from one cop to the next to the next."

After advancing a little more than 100 feet, we ran into reality. The Chicago cops were beating down anybody and everybody not dressed in a blue police uniform. John and I took refuge in the tiny, fenced-in yard that fronted the Mt. Hermon Baptist Church, thinking we had found a sanctuary. Two policemen stood at the gate to the yard. “Come out of there, mother------s,” one yelled, after lifting the plastic face shield on his riot helmet to make sure his voice was plain and clear. At that point, it was obvious that the DNC-issued press credentials dangling around our necks were no protection. As we obeyed the police order, shuffling through the gate, it was just as obvious that the Newsweek-issued riots helmets we wore would offer just a little protection. The blows rang our bells but drew no blood. We were hit and hit again until we were knocked into the stream of screaming and cursing civilians stumbling south on Clark Street. The police had formed a club-swinging gauntlet along the curb. Every four or five feet there was a billy club wielding cop wailing away. We were beaten from one cop to the next to the next. I had two thoughts simultaneously running through my head. One was the sense of fear and hopelessness knowing that the ones who had the power to protect were out to do harm. The other was to find some other body to dart behind so that it might absorb the next blow rather than mine. As suddenly as the beating started, it was over for John and me. We had been clubbed to the intersection of LaSalle and Clark where we could flee with others in the bruised and bloodied crowd. When we got back to Newsweek’s makeshift headquarters, we anxiously reported our painful ordeal to our editors. They thought we had brought it on ourselves. We were taken off the streets and confined to answering the phones on Monday night. Then came other reports of other journalists who had been discouraged by the brute force of the CPD from covering the street demonstrators. Our editors immediately understood it wasn’t us, it was them: The police were out to beat the press.

[The top photo is across from the Conrad Hilton in Grant Park. I'm the young reporter in the riot helmet with Reporter's Notepad in hand. Above is a photograph of Newsweek's journalists beaten by the Chicago police. John Culhane is the white reporter with the mustache. I'm standing on the right, next to him.]

For the next three days and three nights, I was back on the streets, witnessing history unfold. Experiencing it too. I was tear-gassed. I stood face-to-face with National guardsmen, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their rifles in hand. I wiped my watering eyes after tear-gas shells were launched to disperse demonstrators. I furiously scribbled in my Reporter’s Notebook and I watched as more protesters and press landed on the wrong end of a policeman’s nightstick. By the time Hubert Humphrey delivered his acceptance speech on Thursday night, 700 civilians and 83 police were injured. Thirty-two newsmen had to receive medical attention. Some 653 American citizens had been arrested. America and the Democratic Party were not ever the same. So much law and so little order shoved the nation to the right. And just two Democrats, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, have been elected in the four decades following the billy club bash. Last night, on the eve of the Denver convention there were a few hundred protesters on the streets, but, unlike Chicago 1968, there was no disorder among those charged with enforcing the law. Lessons were learned and times have changed. This convention, 40 years later, is going to be another historic one. But rather than history being made on the streets, this time it will be made inside the convention hall. I was a witness to the action outside back then, I’m a witness on the inside this week. Throughout this convention, I’ll share with you what I see.

August 12, 2008

Barack Obama may name his running mate any day now. Yesterday his campaign launched an online "Barack's VP: Be the First to Know" initiative allowing supporters to sign up to get an email or text message as soon as the decision is made. Although conventional wisdom has the Obama and McCain campaigns waiting for a couple of weeks until the Olympics are over, that may or may not happen. The candidate of change, using his cyberspace army, may announce next week once he returns from his Hawaii vacation. The GOP's erstwhile maverick may pick an opportune time to derail the next surge of the Obama media juggernaut. So, while we know the running mate choices are creeping up on us, we wait to see when they'll be sprung. Factoring in the guessing game, EbonyJet.com decided to run its Vice President Fantasy Draft today, featuring revised choices by some of us who had chosen earlier. My June 2 choice of Colin Powell has been jettisoned, reduced to a real world selection.
You can check out my choice, along with those of Eric Easter and Brian Gilmore, below or by going to Ebonyjet.com where there's are other opinions on other things.

RETHINK: The VP Fantasy Draft

August 12, 2008

Months ago when Monroe Anderson, Brian Gilmore and I did our Fantasy Cabinet Picks for Barack Obama, we always knew that we’d have to make an adjustment once the dust settled a bit. And then, maybe not.

Now that we’re only days away from a final decision of Obama’s choice for VP, we decided to see, knowing what we know now, how committed we are to the choices we made in May.

Eric Easter:
My initial pick was Virginia Senator Jim Webb, with the caveat that I actually preferred former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, but thought his current run for Senate might negate consideration.

Since then, Jim Webb has taken himself out of the running and the buzz has been around current Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. So, right state but wrong choices? I’m not so sure.

I like Tim Kaine, he’s a nice, decent sort of fellow and a popular governor, but let’s get the story straight – Tim Kaine won largely on the coattails of Mark Warner. Prior to Warner’s win, Virgina was solidly Republican. The strategy and groundwork it took to turn a red state blue was done by Warner and it’s that kind of campaigning skill that Obama needs.

I still think Mark Warner is far and away the best partner for Obama, emphasis on “partner.” If Obama is going to win, he’s going to do it mostly on his own accord, though Warner brings a lock on Virginia and a spillover effect into West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and North Carolina. Certainly Obama has to win, but really it’s his race to lose. I’m much more concerned with who can help him govern. Again, Mark Warner is the best choice, having been a hands-on governor known for winning broad Republican support and balancing an extremely complicated state budget,

To make this happen, the Democratic Party will have to find a replacement for Warner in the Senate race, and Warner will have to make peace with the possibility that a loss as VP also loses him the opportunity to grab the almost guaranteed Senate seat he’s been coveting for a decade. On the other hand, the fact that Warner already has a campaign and fundraising organization makes him even more attractive.

I know, I know, what about Joe Biden? Call me crazy but two senators on one ticket just scares me. It’s too top-heavy and the job of senator is too far divorced from the people on the ground. Such a pick would only help the Republicans make the case that the Democrats are running an elitist campaign.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve both worked for and donated money to past Warner campaigns. But this is an objective pick, which is more than I can say for a lot of inside –the- Beltway types calling for Warner because they know they’ll have access to his inner circle.

VP Pick: Mark Warner

Monroe, Brian - your turn.

Brian Gilmore:
Okay, Richard Gephart was way off as VP. At the time, I was thinking Missouri, but that is overblown now because there are other states in play besides Missouri, and Missouri might have been in play even though Gephart is not on the ticket. Not to mention the fact that he has been way off the world stage for too long.

So here are a few theories I am stuck with on how Obama will pick his guy.

The Cokie Roberts Choice:

ABC News commentator Cokie Roberts says he has to pick a dull white guy. This might mean Tim Kaine. Kaine is not exactly exciting and he has another plus working for him – he’s from Virginia. Virginia is the slam dunk state for Barack Obama. If he wins, Virginia, McCain is likely in trouble.

The Kennedy Choice

Obama, of course, admires John F. Kennedy. JFK is famous for picking Lyndon Johnson who delivered Texas for Kennedy and the election. This again might point to people like Tim Kaine of Virginia or another high profile Virginia politician like Jim Webb. Webb’s military background makes him a great, though controversial choice. Ted Strickland of Ohio would fall into this category as would Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.

Barack Obama is a man of his word, most of the time. He says geography doesn’t matter; it is leadership. This eliminates the Kennedy choice. Tim Kaine is a dull white guy but probably too dull. Hillary Clinton is not a dull white guy; she is smart, clever, tough, but a sort of dull white woman despite her high profile and her skills as a politician. Ed Rendell could be the choice here but he is missing something that ties him to Washington, makes him look like an international player.

Thus, Obama will pick Joe Biden of Delaware because Biden is ready to lead, has excellent credentials and is dull enough that Obama won’t be overshadowed.

VP Pick: Joe Biden

Monroe Anderson:
A couple of months ago, when I picked my fantasy draft for President Obama, the operative word for me was, well, fantasy. Keeping that in mind, my choice for vice president was Colin Powell. I argued that the retired four-star general would cancel out John McCain’s military advantage. And that as a former presidential cabinet member for both Papa and Junior Bush, Powell was so popular among Republicans, independents and Reagan Democrats that many thought him a more viable candidate in 2000 than George W. I even offered an off-hand—but serious—that “for the nut jobs out there that might be planning an assassination attempt of the nation’s first African American Chief Executive, they’d be forced to think twice.”

But, I knew then as I know now that the regular Democrats aren’t about to let a Republican get that job in the name of change. And, of course, that regular white Americans, Democrat or Republican, weren’t about to vote for a black president and black vice-president—that would be way too much change.

So this time, I’m for real: It won’t be John Edwards.

Seriously, the current short list of names most mentioned for Obama’s running mate are Virginia’s Tim Kaine, Delaware’s Joe Biden and Indiana’s Evan Bayh.

Just two weeks ago, the Washington insiders’ whisper mill had Kaine as the one to beat. Minnesota-born, it was duly-noted that Kaine could help deliver red state Virginia, a feat that might make the difference between Obama being the nation’s first black president or the guy who did way better than the reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Kaine is said to be very compatible with Obama because they both have Kansas roots and they both have Harvard law degrees to decorate the appropriate wall. Kaine was also the first governor outside of Illinois to back Obama.

They aren’t whispering as much as they were last month. My suspicion is because Kaine may be too easy a target for the right-wing fear and smear machine. For one thing, the one-term governor hasn’t governed his state all that well. For another, it’s his name.

There’s a double-digit number of Americans who refuse to believe that Obama’s not a Muslim. An Obama-Kaine ticket would compound the problem with the wing-nut bloggers pointing out that Kaine is not able and that Barack Obama’s middle name is still Hussein.

Biden, on the other hand, shouldn’t be so easily dismissed. He would instantaneously give the ticket foreign policy cred and deflect some of the greenhorn thrust the McCain camp is pushing out there. BUT, Biden, who has been in the senate longer than a bunch of Obama’s most ardent supporters have been alive, doesn’t exactly represent change. AND, Biden is known for sudden outbreaks of foot-in-mouth disease: Remember the Delaware senator’s quote earlier this year that in Obama as a presidential candidate “you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy”?

So Bayh is my choice. A former governor, the two-term senator can help deliver his very red state because he’s popular with both Democrat and Republican Hoosiers. As a former Hillary Clinton supporter, he may also help pacify some of the New York senator’s still disaffected backers. And as a member of the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, he brings something to the foreign affairs table.

Bayh’s drawback is that he is so milquetoast that few voters may notice he’s in the game and that he may be unwilling—or unable—to trash talk while throwing some elbows towards Team McCain.

That may be why Bodog, the online gambling site, has 3/2 odds for both Bayh and Kaine. The next closest choice is Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius whose odds are 8/1.

July 11, 2008

Jesse Jackson’s whisper heard around the world exposed more than the fact that he has non-reverend things to say. Jackson’s open mic confession, “I want to cut his nuts off,” also revealed how he really felt about Barack Obama’s Father’s Day sermon at Chicago’s Apostolic Church of God. We now know that the ever-enduring civil rights leader is envious; that he is all too human. After all, the reverend from Chicago has twice tried—unsuccessfully—to accomplish what the senator from Illinois pulled off on his first attempt. Next month, Obama, who was virtually unknown five years ago, will be officially elected the Democratic Party’s candidate for president. Jackson, who has been a household name through two generations, will be seated somewhere in the Denver convention hall with the rest of the cheering masses. But while Jackson, an early Obama supporter, was apologizing yesterday and politicians and pundits were speculating on whether his statements would harm or help his fellow Democrat's chances of being the nation’s first African American president, a more important point was largely missed: Is Obama playing to a white audience at the expense of blacks?

Check out Eric Easter on ebonyjet.com. This is what he had to say yesterday:

Jesse Jackson made a mistake and he has appropriately apologized. His language was unnecessary, his timing off and the venue (Fox News of all places) gave the comment an illegitimate quality that marred the underlying point Jackson was making, though the castration analogy didn’t exactly help either. It’s all about context. In another setting, stated another way to a different group of people, his comment could have had the power to begin a dialogue to address some of the concerns about Obama’s appeal to mainstream voters and what that means.

But of course, it’s not just what you say, it’s where, how, when and to whom that matter as well. He learned a lesson. But according to quite a number of prominent black activists who are strong Obama supporters but “lovingly critical”, Obama should learn a lesson about what he says and to whom as well.

Far from some sign of a rift between Jackson and Obama, what Jackson said was repeated many times in various forms at the recent Rainbow PUSH Coalition by many thoughtful Black activists who, while supportive of Obama, also choose to be “lovingly critical” to ensure that Obama lives up to the promise he presents.

That this growing opinion surfaced in a troubling way is unfortunate, but the Obama campaign and Obama himself would be wrong not to listen to the writing between the lines.

At specific is Obama’s Father’s Day speech at Apostolic Church that focused on several points regarding the strengthening of urban families but focused most aggressively on the pathologies of a disturbing percentage of Black men. The fact is that Obama has given some version of his responsibility speech for years. He has written about it as well and as the son of an absentee father he speaks of the issue with passion and authority. It is a Cosby-esque speech (but so) and the message needs to be heard. But, as with Jackson’s example, it’s not what you say, it’s all about where, when and to whom.

To read the rest of Easter’s perceptive piece, click here. And to see Jackson's offending whisper on Fox Cable News, it's all here:

November 16, 2007

My Diplomatic Immunity column on Blacks and Blackwater landed me a seat Monday on Bloggers Roundtable for News and Notes. I couldn’t believe how rusty I’d gotten. My first radio interview was in New York City, as a Newsweek intern, after I had the dubious honor of being one of the first journalists beaten by the Chicago Police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. I can’t count the number of radio interviews I’ve done since. Or television interviews. My first was on the Phil Donahue show in 1976, after I’d participated in a Chicago Tribune investigative series on automobile repair fraud. I became a regular on radio and television talk shows when I covered the Harold Washington campaign in the early 1980s and City Hall, once he became mayor. As Press Secretary to Mayor Eugene Sawyer, it was my job to speak to newspaper, radio and TV reporters daily. I even executive-produced and hosted my own public affairs television talk show, Common Ground, on WBBM-TV, a CBS owned-and-operated station, for eight years. All that to say, I am no stranger to broadcast media. But I've been laying low for the past five years so I've only been a radio guest five or six times during that stretch. On Monday’s NPR show, I was not all that quick or agile or authoritative in my answers to host Farai Chideya. I stuttered and sputtered while the other two guests for our segment, Kim Tempest Bradford, of the blog The Angry Black Woman and Anthony Bradley, creator of The Institute blog, were real pros as we talked about blacks in the military, about a white Homeland Security employee’s appearance in blackface at an office Halloween party, Oprah’s move into YouTube and the Jena 6 donations. I hadn't done a good job. I was depressed. But, I did what I did. Good thing for me, practice makes better, which is what I was the next day when I taped a segment on the 20th anniversary of the death of Mayor Washington for Eight Forty-Eight on Chicago’s Public Radio station, WBEZ-FM. The program won’t air until next Friday, November 23. But, what a difference a day made.